Despite federal and state agencies’ efforts, a road by any other name is still Route 128

Route 128, seen here during a road widening project in the 1960s (photo courtesy of Alan Earls, author of “Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech”)

Richard Davey had some good news for South Shore commuters during his appearance on WBZ’s “NightSide” talk show last month.

The “add-a-lane” project on the stretch of Route 128 between Randolph and Westwood, the state’s top transportation official said, would finally be done by sometime this fall.

That’s great to hear. But it’s technically not correct: The state stripped the “Route 128” designation from the highway between Canton and the Braintree split years ago. But that doesn’t mean people around here – even the state’s transportation secretary – have stopped calling the road by its original name.

Route 1? That’s over by Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Interstate 93? That goes to New Hampshire, right?

As the highway’s latest chapter begins, this longtime identity crisis will almost certainly resurface. If federal and state agencies had their way, Route 128 would have been pared back long ago to that east-west thoroughfare from Peabody to Cape Ann, leaving only the “I-95” designation for the main beltway from Canton north to Peabody.

As it stands today, even the “official end” of Route 128 in Canton is hard to enforce. We embrace traditions here in New England, and resist change – especially when forced upon us. I-95 is a generic highway that spans the East Coast. Route 128 is a place we can call our own.

Of course, Route 128 is more than just a highway. Soon after its completion in the 1950s, it became a metonym for Boston’s high-tech community. The highway spurred the creation of vast office parks and research labs, tranquil oases that beckoned fast-growing tech firms spawned in and around the area’s universities (primarily MIT).

Mass. DOT spokesman Mike Verseckes says the I-95 label was first planted on Route 128 from Canton north in the mid-1970s after the proposed Southwest and Northeast expressway projects were canceled. Meanwhile, the I-93 designation was added to the section of 128 between Canton and Braintree.

The widening of Route 128 – now officially just I-93 and Route 1 – in the Canton area. (Gary Higgins/2010 photo)

Verseckes says Route 128 officially lost its South Shore leg after Route 1, between Dedham and Charlestown, was rerouted. Route 1 ran on Storrow Drive at the time. The then-commissioner of the MDC, Verseckes says, had hoped the new route would keep oversized trucks from ending up on Storrow and getting stuck under its low overpasses.

The Route 128 designation was eventually removed from the Canton-Braintree stretch as a condition of getting federal approval for the Route 1 diversion, Verseckes says. The change also ensured that those seemingly contradictory “North I-93/South 128” signs could be dismantled.

The rest of the Route 128 loop hasn’t been safe, either. Verseckes says there have been several attempts by the state over the years to completely eliminate the Route 128 designation south of Peabody.

Those attempts were always met with fierce opposition. So highway officials have taken a stealthier approach. Route 128 markers were removed from most directional signs as they were replaced, starting in the 1990s, as a condition of receiving federal funds for the highway upgrades. The state, fortunately, still maintains independent 128 signs at various points along the route.

But the miracle lost its shine after Silicon Valley left the minicomputer industry in the dust in the 1990s. The position of Route 128 and sibling highway 495 as a tech mecca would wane as powerhouses Data General, Digital and Wang Laboratories disappeared.

Earls also pointed to a 1996 book by AnnaLee Saxenian, now dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information, that attributed Silicon Valley’s triumph to the hierarchical culture that dominated the old-school Route 128 tech firms. The book’s premise caught on, he says, and was taken to heart locally.

The “technology corridor” label isn’t quite so fashionable around these parts anymore. But Earls says Route 128 is still viewed as a codeword for Boston’s tech industry in other parts of the world.

The highway that inspired the Jonathan Richman song “Roadrunner” endures. But for how long? A new generation of Massachusetts drivers navigates the area today with the help of Mapquest and GPS robots, sources that inevitably default to the federally-endorsed I-95 and I-93 names.

However, traffic reporters still use the Route 128 designation to describe the entire beltway, from Braintree to Gloucester. Commercial real estate agents still tout the office space in the “Route 128 south” corridor. The news media still mention the old name in coverage of accidents or other incidents on any part of the beltway. And locals still refer to it when giving directions.

Yanni Tsipis, co-author of the other Arcadia book about the highway, says Route 128 holds an important place in the hearts and minds of nearly everyone who lives in Eastern Massachusetts. Tsipis, now a senior vice president with brokerage Colliers International, says Route 128 remains an important backbone for the state’s tech industry. Minicomputers are gone, although pieces of that industry were picked up by EMC, HP and Intel. Defense is still huge, though maybe not as big as it was during the Cold War. And major players in other industries such as biotech and robotics emerged and planted roots along the route.

Tsipis says locals will hold onto the 128 name, the way we still say “the Pru” even though Prudential no longer owns the tower and the “Mass. Pike” even though the turnpike authority has been disbanded.

Federal and state agencies can use the official I-93 or Route 1 designation when the six-lane highway between Randolph and Westwood is finally widened to eight lanes this fall. It doesn’t matter if the highway looks different, or if the traffic jams aren’t quite as bad. Most of us will still call the road by its true name, even though it’s not the official one.

Until I read your article, I thought it was just me who was so confused about the jumble that is I-93 / I-95 / Route 128. Now I understand the reason it happened is because the state needed to satisfy some federal requirement, for whatever reason. My understanding now is this: I-93 is the north-south thoroughfare from Vermont down to Canton, where it ends. To continue heading south, exit onto I-95 south. Heading north? I-93 becomes I-95 north at Canton. The designation of Route 128 north also begins at this point — officially. Unofficially, it begins back at the South Shore Plaza!

Your writing about this prompted me to look up more about I-93, and I found a lot on Wikipedia, which I printed and plan to keep in the car. It includes the exits, highway intersections, etc., all the way through to the Zakim Bridge. With all the rebuilding going on over the last dozen or so years from Boston and to the south, it’s very confusing. Now much of the cloud has been lifted. Thank you, Jon Chesto.

It is still rte 128 to me, and always will be you people made it more confusing it use wo run all the way North near Gloucester Ma. now its all split up well thats Ma. for you,please don’t change the railroad station name it still Rte 128 i am 65 and i hate change. i can’t even remember where the hell 95 starts or ends ITS RTE 128

Kathy,
Thanks for the note. I wish I could answer all the mysteries about this strange highway, but the research wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I think we would be much better off if the state and federal highway agencies:
a. Started I-93 at the Braintree split instead of Canton (the Canton start is some sort of consolation prize for losing the Southwest Expressway way back when).
b. Left Route 1 on the “surface roads” through Dedham and into Boston instead of overlaying it on I-93 from Canton to Braintree and then to Boston. I can’t imagine any truck driver would use that previous Route 1 course anyway as a through route, and nearly every truck driver (except for moving trucks for some reason) knows they can’t go on Storrow.
c. Continue to call the entire beltway Route 128, from the Braintree split all the way up to Gloucester. After all, we’re going to call it Route 128 anyway.
-Jon

Timmy, I think the Feds can’t tell the state what to do with its own money, but they CAN tell the state what to do when they hand out the federal funding. Same deal as the seat belt laws used to be, and maybe still are. A state doesn’t have to enact a seat belt law, but they lose all (?) their federal funding if they don’t. It’s just too much money to turn down.

A new generation of Massachusetts drivers navigates the area today with the help of Mapquest and GPS robots

You can tell someone from this “new generation” was not responsible for the writing or editing of this article. Does anyone really use MapQuest anymore? That was so 1990s… (And who refers to GPS as robots?)

Nonetheless, as a local history buff, I quite enjoyed this article. Having grown up in Randolph, I never knew exactly what to call that highway on the North side of the town.

Of course to add to the numeric soup that we have there is a proposal to upgrade Rt 24 to Federal Highway status and rename it to I93. This would leave in limbo the section between Rt 24 and I95. Perhaps rename it to Rt 128 for that part.

I don’t think I saw it mentioned that Route 128 as we all commonly drive it is also called the Yankee Division Highway–as in the US Army’s 26th Infantry Division, not the NY baseball team. I like Steve Anderson’s recommendation for naming the stretch of the road between Dedham and Braintree as I595 to avoid the confusion introduced by using I93N/S to name an east-west road (http://www.bostonroads.com/roads/MA-128/). In any case, Long Live 128!

I started looking for articles and references like this after I noticed that “Route 128” crosses Route 2 at ITS 128-mile marker and wondered if there was a connection. Another useless fact clogging my gray matter.